Saturday, January 15, 2011

(PICTURE: The view from the hotel. What you can't see are the megaphones slightly below the balcony.)

After going to bed somewhere in the ballpark of 1AM, I was looking forward to sleeping a little bit late. You know, like to 7:30 or 8. However, the local radio station didn't get that memo. At 5AM, the Phu Ly announcements started to BLARE from a telephone pole right outside my window. As I've written in the past, whenever you go out to the countryside/small towns, they have morning announcements that start around sunrise. Apparently, like many members of my wedding party, I don't read my blog. I mean, if I had, I would surely have taken a room that wasn't two feet away from the loudspeaker outside the window. I'm not sure why I didn't record the audio of the announcement because I can't really put into words just how loud it was. After god knows how long I finally blurted out, "Are you serious?". This immediately got a good chuckle from my sister who was trying to sleep in the bed next to me. I forget what was said next, but I was definitely thinking that I hoped they were at least announcing my wedding.

After realizing that there was no way we were gonna be able to go back to sleep, Hannah and I got up and explored the city for some breakfast. It didn't take too much walking before we found an alley with a whole bunch of street food options. My sister and I sat down at the first "restaurant" and got some kind of noodle dish that I'd never seen before. Yeah, eating a dish you've never seen before isn't usually a good idea before your wedding but heck, how could I not try it? Thankfully, the food sat well.

Around 7:30AM, Hannah and I returned to the hotel. I had a weird feeling in my body that was a mix of absolute exhaustion (at this point I hadn't had more than five hours sleep in over a week) and excitement to get married. While I was brushing my teeth in the bathroom, I decided to play a little joke. I walked out into the bedroom in a seemingly total daze and said to my sister, "I can't do it." We both started to crack up. Clearly we were over tired.